Sunday, May 03, 2009

Egg-stra-ordinary

Yesterday I bought a dozen eggs at the farmer's market, white brown and green. (When you crack them open they are all regular eggs inside.)

Today has been all about eggs. I had been thinking about fresh eggs versus store bought eggs (which are a minimum of 7-10 days old.) I'd heard so much about fresh eggs. About the rich color of their yolks. About how good they tasted. I've also been reading about everyday life in Victorian England. Today I made eggs, bacon (thick-sliced and slowly cooked) toast from English Toasting bread slathered with butter, and fresh squeezed orange juice. This isn't particularly English, but it does share with the Victorians a preference for heavy food not particularly distinguished by seasoning. It was a very fine breakfast.

Were the eggs better? I think they were. But I don't think they were astonishingly better.N or did they have the deep orange yolks Mario Batalli says make handmade pasta in Italy so much better than pasta here. But they were really pretty and it was a good breakfast.

I also made a lemon meringue pie. I doubt, after adding gelatin, sugar, and lemon juice, that I will be able to say much about the taste of the eggs in the lemon curd, but I suspect it will be good just the same.

6 Comments:

I wonder if it's the breed of chicken? I can definitely say that the eggs I buy from the guy in Newbury are much deeper orange yolk than store-bought eggs. His chickens are the Black Astraulorb. He also feeds flax seed - I wonder if that makes the yolks more orange? Curious.

I've started buying cage-free, grain-fed eggs. I started buying them on principle, but I've been astonished at the difference in quality. The color of the yolk, the consistency of the white, the thickness of the shell are remarkably better. They taste better, fluff better, are better.

We've been getting eggs from the feral chicken for months now but the young chickens have just started laying and THEY'RE GREEN. Er, hm, the eggs are green. That is, the egg SHELLS are green. Very like the green ones in your picture. Feral chicken's eggs have been a very faint tan. But the green eggs make me want to go buy some ham.

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